St Peter's Church was an Anglican church in

Great Windmill Street Great Windmill Street is a thoroughfare running north–south in Soho, London, crossed by Shaftesbury Avenue. The street has had a long association with music and entertainment, most notably the Windmill Theatre, and is now home to the Ripl ...

Soho SoHo, short for "South of Houston Street, Houston Street", is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, art installations such as The Wall ...

, in the

City of Westminster The City of Westminster is a London borough with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in Greater London, England. It is the site of the United Kingdom's Houses of Parliament and much of the British government. It contains a large par ...

, London. It was built in 1861, and was demolished in the 1950s.

History

The church was designed by Raphael Brandon, for a small site on the east side of Great Windmill Street, externally only the west front being seen by the public. Since it was a poor district, funds for the site and for the building came from elsewhere, and the largest single contributor was the

14th Earl of Derby Edward George Geoffrey Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby (29 March 1799 – 23 October 1869), known as Lord Stanley from 1834 to 1851, was a British statesman and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician who served three times as Prime ...

. The foundation stone was laid by the Earl of Derby on the 25 June 1860, and the completed church was consecrated on 12 July 1861. Lavers and Barraud provided glass for the east windows of the aisles. A district was assigned to the church on 7 February 1865.'Great Windmill Street Area', in ''Survey of London: Volumes 31 and 32, St James Westminster, Part 2'', ed. F H W Sheppard (London, 1963), pp. 41-56
British History Online, retrieved 27 October 2023. Incumbents included George Wilkinson (later

Bishop of Truro The bishop of Truro is the ordinary (diocesan bishop) of the Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown De ...

and

Bishop of St Andrews The Bishop of St. Andrews (, ) was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of St Andrews in the Catholic Church and then, from 14 August 1472, as Archbishop of St Andrews (), the Archdiocese of St Andrews. The name St Andrews is not the town or ...

) from 1867 to 1869, Arthur Mozley from 1869 to 1880, and Henry Alsager Sheringham from 1880 to 1885. The church was often attended by

Lord Salisbury Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (; 3 February 183022 August 1903), known as Lord Salisbury, was a British statesman and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United ...

. The building measured : it was built of brick and faced inside and out with

Bath stone Bath Stone is an oolitic limestone comprising granular fragments of calcium carbonate originally obtained from the Middle Jurassic aged Great Oolite Group of the Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines under Combe Down, Somerset, England. Its h ...

. It had a

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

and aisles, with

clerestory A clerestory ( ; , also clearstory, clearstorey, or overstorey; from Old French ''cler estor'') is a high section of wall that contains windows above eye-level. Its purpose is to admit light, fresh air, or both. Historically, a ''clerestory' ...

above, and a short

apsidal In architecture, an apse (: apses; from Latin , 'arch, vault'; from Ancient Greek , , 'arch'; sometimes written apsis; : apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an ''exedra''. In Byzant ...

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...

. In 1953, a new parish was created, uniting the parishes of St Peter's Church, St Thomas's Church in Regent Street and

St Anne's Church, Soho St Anne's Church serves in the Church of England the Soho section of London. It was consecrated on 21 March 1686 by Bishop Henry Compton as the parish church of the new civil and ecclesiastical parish of St Anne Within the Liberty of Westminst ...

. St Peter's was closed in April 1954, and was demolished.'St. Anne's Church', in ''Survey of London: Volumes 33 and 34, St Anne Soho'', ed. F H W Sheppard (London, 1966), pp. 256-277
British History Online, retrieved 27 October 2023.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Peter's Church, Great Windmill Street Former Church of England church buildings Buildings and structures demolished in the 1950s Churches completed in 1861 Former churches in the City of Westminster